Sus chords

Sus chords are particularly common in pop music. Sus is an abbreviation of ´suspension ´. In a theoretical aspect what’s happening with the chord when you add sus to it are that the third note in the scale (e.i. the second note in the chord) are flattened or raised one step. There are sus2 and sus4 chords. In the first case, the note is flatten and in the second case it’s raised.

The C chord consists of the notes C, E and G. In a Csus2 chord the E note will change to D and in a Csus4 the E note will subsequently change to F. One more thing: sometimes the name of the chord will just be written as "Csus" without a 2 or 4. In this case, you should treat it as a Csus4.

Some common sus chords

Csus4

Dsus4

Dsus2

Esus4

Gsus4

Asus4

Asus2

More chords

How to use the sus chords

As always in music there’s many ways to tackle things. A very common procedure, however, concerning these chords are to alternate between the original chord and the sus chord of the same root note. For example: D to Dsus and back to D.

A specific figure is: D – Dsus4 – D – Dsus2 – D.

(This one can be found in the intro of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”.)

Another figure is: A – Asus2 – A – Asus4 – A – Asus2 – A.

(This riff can be heard in the Tom Petty song “Feel a Whole Lot Better”.)

A chord progression you can try out to get a sense of how the sus chords can function together with its original chord is: E – Esus4 – E – D – Dsus4 – D – A – Asus4 – A – E.

One important thing to think of then you are playing these kinds of chord progressions is to avoid lifting all your fingers when the chord changes. If you are using the correct fingerings you just have to lift one finger or add a finger depending on the chord (see easy chords for diagrams).